The Mauer brothers, Eric, 22, and Grant, 20, both graduates of Portsmouth High School, spent the summer on the road.

“We shipped our bikes to Portland, Oregon, and flew out there on June 16,” Grant said. “We rebuilt them in a Federal Express parking lot, in the pouring rain.”

Eric said that was the last time they really saw rain until Wednesday night, when locally they traveled through pretty serious downpours.

“We traveled across the Cascades and through the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park,” Grant said. “I think that may have been the most beautiful part of our trip.”

Asked why they undertook such a challenge, both young men said it was simply for the adventure, to see the country and to meet new people.

“You meet a lot of very friendly people when you are traveling on a bicycle,” Eric said. “On the West Coast, people would say, ‘You’re going to do what?’ By the middle of the country it was questions about where we had come from and how far we still had to go.”

Eric said they made a lot of connections through Warm Showers, a nationwide volunteer organization that hosts long distance bike riders.

“We had tents and would ask for a place to pitch them,” Eric said. “Most of the time, people offered us beds and some great breakfasts and dinners.”

When the Mauers arrived in Rome, N.Y., they were met by family. Their mother, father, grandfather and younger brother Will rode the rest of the way with them. It’s a biking family, for sure, Eric said.

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